Estradiol Inhibits Healing and is Carcinogenic: Both Reasons Women Should Not Be on Birth Control Pills
Estradiol Inhibits Healing and is Carcinogenic:
Both Reasons Women Should Not Be on Birth Control Pills
Ross Hauser, M.D.
One of our jobs at Caring Medical is to help our patients have the best chance to heal from their pain. Prolotherapy is the treatment of choice in our opinion for lax (injured) tendons and ligament which cause pain.
There are plenty of things a person can do to aid healing. A good diet and proper exercise are a given. Most people intuitively know why they are important, and we can educate folks in the particulars. Not so apparent is the effect that hormones can have on the healing response.
If you were to sit in our waiting room for a day, or in most other pain clinics for that matter, you would see that there are significantly more women in them than men. Is it because women are “wimpier” than men (hardly), or that men fear injections more than women (probably true)? No, the reason is that women’s hormonal make-up makes it more difficult for them to heal soft-tissue injuries. They lack the large amount of testosterone that men have and as an anabolic hormone, testosterone is a major positive force promoting tissue repair. While we can and do prescribe testosterone replacement therapy for women whose levels are low, we can never get them to even approach the levels that most men have naturally. Not that we would want to do that. The second major hormonal difference between the sexes and its link to healing is women’s high level of estradiol, one of the estrogens that is present in high levels during child-bearing years.
Unfortunately for women, estradiol inhibits the proliferation of fibroblasts. These are the cells that make up the collagen that is needed for tendons and ligaments to repair. Fibroblasts are cells that are capable of differentiating into chondroblasts (make cartilage), collagenoblasts (make collagen) or osteoblasts (make bone). In other words, a woman’s estradiol make-up puts her at a disadvantage as far as healing soft tissue injuries.
When a ligament or tendon is injured, it needs the collagen that is damaged repair. One of the main mechanisms for this to happen is the proliferation of fibroblasts. Prolotherapy is called proliferative therapy because it stimulates fibroblasts to proliferate (make more fibroblasts). The reason why this is important is because it is these fibroblastic cells that make the collagen that needs to be repaired. Collagen is what makes up ligaments and tendons. When ligaments and tendons are damaged, it means the collagen within them is damaged. So when a person goes to the doctor with pain, what he/she needs is collagen repair. Estradiol in a woman’s body inhibits this repair.
We would not want to lower a women’s natural production of estradiol, because basically, it is what makes a woman look like a woman, and readies the uterus to be fertilized. The only exception to this is if a woman is overweight and it is this obesity problem that is the cause of her overproduction of estradiol. In such a case, putting the woman on the appropriate Hauser Diet to lose weight would be needed.
What most women do not realize is that the number one ingredient in traditional hormone replacement and birth control pills is estradiol. So we do have an obligation to inform women who are taking oral, topical, or injectable forms of birth control that they are inhibiting their bodies’ ability to heal because of these medications. Now if the main reason for using estradiol-based birth control is truly birth control, well, this is something that needs to be discussed between a husband and wife in order to come to the best decision about whether or not to get off of it. But, if a woman has been using birth control for other reasons, like polycystic ovary disease, dysmenorrhea or PMS, then Caring Medical can offer alternatives to estradiol treatment to help control or eliminate these problems. For these types of conditions, we recommend getting at the “root cause” of the ailment versus just covering it up with medications. We commonly see hormonal imbalances caused by improper diet. By doing Hauser Diet Typing and food allergy testing, the proper diet can be prescribed. Typically this will correct the hormone imbalance without the woman going on hormone replacement.
If slowing your body’s ability to heal is not enough bad news about excessive estradiol, how about this: The American Cancer Society has given estradiol a Group 1 carcinogenic ranking, their highest ranking.
ESTRADIOL IS CARCINOGENIC!!! They say it does not possibly cause cancer, not probably causes cancer, it DOES cause cancer.
In 2005 the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences listed it as a known cancer-causing agent. Here are a couple of links to the research behind this finding.
From the International Agency for Research on Cancer:
http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Monographs/vol91/mono91-7D.pdf
And from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/
So if you or a loved one is on the birth control pill or traditional hormone replacement, it is our recommendation that you seriously consider getting of them. Your very life could depend on it!
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